Depleted Ducks can’t keep up with Wild

07.12.2024 08:55

DailyNews.com

Ducks center Mason McTavish shoots the puck past Minnesota Wild center Frederick Gaudreau during the first period on Friday night at Honda Center. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)

1 of 29

Ducks center Mason McTavish shoots the puck past Minnesota Wild center Frederick Gaudreau during the first period on Friday night at Honda Center. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong)

Expand

ANAHEIM — It was an eventful day between the Jacob Trouba acquisition and the third annual “Women in Sports Night” at Honda Center, but there was still a game to be played on Friday night, one that unraveled for the Ducks in the second period as the Minnesota Wild cruised to a 5-1 victory.

The Ducks finalized their deal with the New York Rangers for Trouba in the early afternoon and the veteran defenseman was still in the Big Apple on Friday evening. Notably, they were also without Trevor Zegras (lower-body injury) and Leo Carlsson (upper-body injury), though General Manager Pat Verbeek said Carlsson could come back during the team’s upcoming four-game road trip.

Brock McGinn returned to action for the first time since Nov. 18 and scored the Ducks’ only goal. Cam Fowler assisted on it and tied Corey Perry for the second-most games played in franchise history with 988. John Gibson came up with 28 saves.

Minnesota’s top trio of Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi dominated as each member racked up three points. In Kaprizov’s case that meant climbing back atop the Art Ross Trophy leaderboard. Yakov Trenin added an empty-netter. Filip Gustavsson stopped 26 shots and the Wild took sole possession of first place in the NHL, moving to 18-4-4 with their season-best fifth win in a row.

“I don’t think we had our best tonight; I don’t think we had enough guys going,” Ryan Strome said. “Opportunistic goals. Their top guys are helluva players, when you give them time and space, they’re going to make plays … and when you play a team that’s 17-4-4, you need everyone going.”

The first period brought a couple of hairy moments in the Ducks’ crease and a Mason McTavish partial breakaway that chipped some paint off the post. But the second period brought the game’s first power play at 4:04 and, 18 seconds later, its first goal.

“At the start of the game, we had pretty good jump, but then in the second period we didn’t get enough pucks behind their ‘D’ and they made us pay for our mistakes,” captain Radko Gudas said.

On the Wild’s power-play goal, Alex Killorn couldn’t reach a puck just inside the Ducks’ defensive blue line that was snatched up by Jared Spurgeon and moved point-to-point for Kaprizov. He found an enormous seam to send a pass to Rossi at the side of the net, where he redirected the puck skyward, roofing it for the first of his two goals.

A Brett Leason breakaway nearly recouped that goal, but Minnesota struck again – and again – at the 8:03 and 10:51 marks.

Although the Ducks had Minnesota outnumbered at the net, Rossi’s incidental contact with a shot attempt into congestion by Boldy earned him credit for his ninth goal of the season after the loose puck was inadvertently kicked in by Gibson’s left skate.

A stretch pass for Kaprizov during a Ducks line change hastened and consternated their sort-out in the defensive zone. There, Kaprizov, Rossi and Boldy went tic-tac-toe for a tap-in tally, Boldy’s 12th of the year but just his second in his past 10 games.

Ducks coach Greg Cronin said his team had two defenders staring at the puck, but credited the overall performance of Kaprizov and cohorts as “The Thrill” intensified his pursuit of hardware like the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award.

“(Players) that can control the puck and that are confident with people on their backs, that can scan the ice and make plays, that’s an elite level of hockey. It’s up there with (Connor) McDavid and (Nathan) MacKinnon, and that group, they did the damage,” Cronin said.

Late in the frame, Strome had his point-blank bid at an empty net denied by a stick check by Spurgeon and Gustavsson had the answer for McGinn’s shot from the slot.

Frank Vatrano’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at the end of the second period rolled a Minnesota power play into the third. Though it was technically a five-on-five marker, the Wild extended their lead to 4-0 just one second after Vatrano’s penalty expired.

While Kaprizov can produce dazzling moments, this was another simple shot-rebound goal. Boldy’s flick from the center of the blue line created some loose change that Kaprizov was quick to deposit in the piggy bank behind Gibson.

With 3:23 left in the game, McGinn broke up what would have been Gustavsson’s league-leading third shutout when he tipped Fowler’s point shot home for his fourth goal of 2024-25.

Some extended six-on-four time with Gibson pulled during a power play created some chances, including a close-range opportunity for Killorn, but ultimately a mishandle by Jackson LaCombe and a long shot into an empty net from Trenin quelled any excitement in the building.

“(Assistant coach) Tim Army has an expression, the unholy trinity is you don’t shoot the puck, the shot gets blocked and you shoot the puck wide. We did a lot of that for a lot of the game,” Cronin said.

Women in Sports Weekend will continue Saturday at Great Park Ice, where Olympic gold medalist Angelo Ruggiero will be on hand.

For the Ducks, they’ll be off Saturday ahead of their four-game trip, which begins Monday in Montreal for what figures to be Trouba’s Ducks debut.

“Obviously, we’ve got a new teammate coming in to add some excitement to the group,” Strome said. “We’ve got to try to stay even keel, look past this one as quick as we can and get ready for a big road trip.”